What does lazaretto mean?
A lazaretto is a place where people exposed to or carrying a contagious disease are isolated, especially a quarantine station or a ship used to hold travelers and cargo during an epidemic. Its strongest modern associations are historical: Mediterranean ports established lazaretti to prevent plague from spreading through arriving ships, sometimes detaining passengers for weeks or months. Today the word is uncommon and generally appears in historical, literary, or public-health contexts rather than ordinary descriptions of hospitals or clinics. Although it once denoted both the place of isolation and the ship serving that purpose, the quarantine-station sense is now central. The term also carries the ominous historical association of epidemic disease, particularly plague, making it useful in writing about the origins of organized quarantine and maritime public health.
nounA place used to isolate people infected with a contagious disease, especially a quarantine station or ship. Historically, the term most often referred to stations established to prevent the spread of plague and other diseases.
- A quarantine station, building, or ship used to isolate people with contagious diseases.
- Historically, a maritime quarantine establishment where ships and their passengers were detained and inspected during epidemics.
"The ship was directed to a remote lazaretto, where the passengers remained in quarantine."
"Health officials confined the travelers to the lazaretto until the danger of contagion had passed."
"Venice established lazaretti in the 16th century to control the spread of plague arriving by sea."
The plural adds the ending -es to words ending in -o.
"Several lazarettoes were established on islands near major Mediterranean ports."
The word lazaretto comes from a Venetian plague island whose isolation of arriving ships helped make quarantine a model for public health.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does lazaretto come from?
The word comes through Italian and Venetian usage from the Latinized form lazaretto. It is traditionally associated with the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth, later called Santo Lazaro, near Venice, where a leper hospital and plague quarantine were established. The name is connected with Saint Lazarus, whose biblical association with sickness and the poor helped shape the related English words lazar and Lazarus.
Related word forms
How lazaretto is actually used
The word is now chiefly historical or literary. In modern usage it often evokes maritime quarantine, plague, and early public-health measures.
Easily confused with lazaretto
A lazaretto is a place of quarantine, whereas a lazar is an archaic word for a person believed to have leprosy.
A lazaretto was specifically intended to isolate and quarantine people with contagious diseases, while a hospital generally provides treatment for a wider range of illnesses.